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by Eliezer 5788 days ago
Scott Aaronson expresses his confidence that the proof is wrong by offering to supplement the million-dollar Clay prize with $200,000 of his own money if it's correct:

http://scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=456

2 comments

I find it strange that he doesn't explain his confidence with at least a general description of the way in which he thinks the proof will fail.

I suppose he could have safely claimed this with Wiles's original proof as well, since it did have at least one non-trivial flaw that required amending. It's quite possible that the proof contains flaws, but will still hold up in the end, because the flaws can be corrected. But I feel that's a bit of a lame gamble.

Well, but Scott Aaronson wrote: "If Vinay Deolalikar is awarded the $1,000,000 Clay Millennium Prize for his proof of P≠NP, then I, Scott Aaronson, will personally supplement his prize by the amount of $200,000." So I suppose that any non-trivial flaw which will be eventually fixed by author of the paper himself is not a problem here.
Sometimes there are also flaws which can not be corrected.

But I cannot make a qualified guess if this might be the case here.

Of course, but that's an even larger gamble, if you don't have at least a very specific hunch about the way in which a proof will fail. All in all, this announcement by Aaronson seems rather rash. I don't understand why he would do such a thing.
I am OK with it. He put his money where his mouth is, instead of just putting his mouth somewhere.
Scott Aaronson does not explicitly say the proof is wrong, but says

> If P≠NP has indeed been proved, my life will change so dramatically that having to pay $200,000 will be the least of it. […] If P≠NP is proved, then to whatever extent theoretical computer science continues to exist at all, it will have a very different character.

and

> I can afford $200k, but not in the same way Bill Gates can afford $200k.

Discussed here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1587405

As randomwalker says, it's not entirely obvious that Aaronson is betting against the proof.

It is.
It wasn't, when the comment you just downmodded was written. There's a reason Aaronson's posted multiple clarifications, after all...